We love Twitter/X. We hate Twitter/ X
Cataclysmic re-brand aside... how to (cautiously) harness it to find Antidoters
Twitter/ X has been getting a bad press of late, partly due to its no-f*cks-given billionaire owner. Musk is provocateur-in-chief and undeniably an Antidoter vs. many mainstream ‘givens’ whether you agree with any (or none) of his views.
This last week he’s been wading in on ‘the flood of illegals’, calling Google Gemini ‘super racist and sexist’, telling us that ‘DEI puts the lives of our loved ones at risk’ and claiming he wants ‘never went to therapy’ written on his tombstone. Cue 10 minutes down a rabbit hole on each to try and find out who or what the hell he’s citing by way of evidence (and typically there’s threads-full of context).
Irrespective of your thoughts on any of these issues (Google’s AI bias is certainly 🤯) what cannot be denied is that Musk is one of the smartest men on the planet and he now seems to be Commander-in-chief of the ‘war on woke’ by virtue of his power, influence and platform.
Having mused previously on the conflict that is celebrity political influence, I won’t labour that point and instead talk ‘X’ pros and cons - and especially, how it can be used to identify Antidoter voices - a key resource for me, and a selection of which from the last week I’ve copied below to illustrate the point.
Herewith, a few pointers on how to ‘X’ if you’re simply interested in surfacing good content, not in personal brand-building (God knows I’m shit at that. I average a single ‘like’ per post primarily as I seem to have picked up 1000+ crypto-bro followers following a work project last year. At least that’s my explanation for the poor conversion of posts on charity shops):
It’s only as good/bad an experience as the people you follow
Eg For some it’s a football-only site; crypto-only; politics-only; celeb-gossip-only etc. Yours can be whatever you’re interested in. It’s as diverse, positive, inspiring, dull or awful as you/ your interests are.
Who to follow
Start by selecting a few personalities that you already like and see the conversations they’re a part of to find other like-minded commentators.
(Or start here with my Antidoter list (work in progress - please suggest additions).
Prioritise those who share links to longer-form content: podcasts, articles, academic research, rather than simply pontificate in 280 characters
Follow people on *all* sides to balance your feed
Curate and recurate carefully, following and unfollowing constantly
Who not to follow
Arseholes. If someone rants and rails and only ever plays the person, not the ball, they’re not worth the follow. They’re typically not happy people and don’t get nuance (or worse, do and don’t care)
Disclaimer - you may still wish to follow them if a) they make you laugh or b) despite their behaviour, they do actually have influence e.g. Andrew Neil. Surprisingly ranty.
Categorise
Use the bookmark function to save for later or categorise good reads into interest folders (mine include: Antidoters; Feminism; Charity Shops, obvs)
Use lists to compile thinkers on particular topics that interest you. If you tap on these, you’ll just see their tweets
Be careful what you post, ‘like’, RT etc.
You’ve favourite poster might be revealed as a fraud, sex-pest or a something-ist. This record will follow you professionally and get churned up in the Times should you take on a govt board role 🥴
Lurk-only to be on the safe side unless you’re particularly bold or building professional brand along an uncontroversial theme.
Remember it’s all theatre and not the real world
It is exhausting and depressing at times: the real world put through a grinder with all its nuance and humanity squeezed out.
It has influence- not helped by lazy journalists sourcing headlines from the confected outrage - but most people do not act or think like they do on X in the real world. It’s an avatar-to-avatar computer game. Pow, pow.
ignore ‘spaces’… no one seems to know what they’re doing there. Dull. as. hell.
hashtags are very last decade now too
Limit to <15 mins per day of scrolling.
Switch off, shake your head at the angry, unhappy fools and go play with your kids or get out for a walk.
To further make my defence, here are some Antidoter tweets that stoked my curiosity this week and if you’re new to the platform or looking to refresh your feed, start by checking out this list I’ve started compiling of some Antidoters.
Apologies if I’ve opened up a hugely unproductive hornet’s-nest of angry toilet scrolling.